The Modernist
Explosion
(Matador/Popular)
Although it says that Explosion is Joerg Burgers debut release as The Modernist, I know better. Although it's kind of obscure, and very hard to find in the United States, he released a full-length album just over a year back entitled Opportunity Knox. On that release, he debuted his polished sort of gurgling post house sound, and although it didn't work well all the time, it definitely showed promise. Not content to sit around, he also collaborated and released an album with Mike Ink called Las Vegas.
Explosion is the progression of the sounds on both of the albums listed above and shows quite a step forward in terms of musical quality from his debut release. His style is refined and although it may run a bit long for some people at well over 70 minutes, the disc is chocked full of catchy, fairly minimal tracks that progress nicely along and could definitely help hypnotize a dance floor with their subtle changes and warm layers of sound.
The disc starts out in the fashion mentioned above with "Victor Ludorum" and doesn't stop for some time. Burger rolls through three tracks of deep rolling beats and little electronic clicks and clacks before the album changes up a little bit for a couple tracks. On "Inspiratio," he takes an even lighter approach at the beginning of the track with some repetitive chiming tones before a thumping beat kicks in and the album slides right back into the well worn groove. Things really change up on "Manson Soup," when the first real organic sounds make their way into the mix. While the crux of the song is the same deep, warm tones that permiate the rest of the release, the addition of a simple strum of an acoustic guitar for awhile add a nice flavor to the track and a little bit of a change for the album.
Fortunately, he also knows how to slam things a little bit harder and still make them sound warm and fuzzy, and he manages to do just that on "Face Working" and with the offset beat of "Architainment." He closes things out with the very long and super slow progression of "Channel 28." Over a soft tone wash, he drops a beat that sounds like a happy washing machine going about its business. As mentioned above, the album might technically fall into a "house" music category, but it's really nothing like what you'd typically think of when hearing the term. One complaint is that the sounds on the album might get a little repetitive, but he does well to change things up quite a bit at the end of the album after a less interesting beginning. Listen on headphones and you'll be bathed in enough rich, thick lows and other warm sounds that you'll feel like you're swimming (at a pretty good clip, mind you).
Rating: 7.25
